


He Dances With Wolves

by EternallySacred



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A lot more characters are mentioned, Hunter Hinata, M/M, Minor Character Death, This is basically a shiver spin off, Werewolf Hunters, Werewolves, kageyama's a werewolf
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:17:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8757973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternallySacred/pseuds/EternallySacred
Summary: Hinata was 7 when he first saw the wolves.At 9 years old, the wolves came around but his parents were never home. They were off doing “adult things”11 was when it happened, when the wolves attacked and he was sure he was going to die, only to be saved by a mysterious figure with startling blue eyes.Now at 16, Hinata is werewolf hunter in training.





	1. Chapter 1

Hinata remembers lying in the snow, the cold reaching fingers that leached the warmth from his bones, surrounded by a pack of wolves. They were licking his exposed skin with sandpapery tongues, leaving searing bites in their wake, disturbing his body, advancing in. Their huddled bodies blocked what little warmth the sun offered. Ice glistened on their ruffs like gossamer and their breath made smeared shapes that hung suspended in the air around us. The strong smell of their coats made him think of wet dog and burning leaves, pleasant and terrifying. Their tongues melted his skin; their negligent teeth ripped at his already ragged sleeves and snagged through his orange hair, pushed against his collarbone, the pulse at his delicate neck.

Hinata could have screamed, but he didn’t. He could have fought, but he just didn’t. Hinata just lay there and let it happen, no one would come to his rescue his parents were gone. They were always gone. He watched the winter-white sky go gray above him.

One wolf prodded his nose into Hinata’s hand and against his cold cheek, casting a shadow across my face. His stunning blue eyes looked into Hinata’s orange ones while the other wolves jerked him this way and that without a care in the world

He held on to those eyes for as long as he could. Blue. And, up close, flecked brilliantly with every shade of grey and green. Hinata didn’t want him to look away, and he didn’t. He wanted to reach out and grab a hold of his ruff, but his hands stayed curled on his, barely moving,chest, his arms frozen to his body. A lifeless dead weight.

Hinata couldn’t remember what it felt like to be warm. To have the sun brilliantly shining on his skin. He craved that feeling of warmth.

Then he was gone, and without him, the other wolves closed in, too close, suffocating. Darkness enveloped him. Something seemed to flutter in his chest. Fear?

There was no sun; there was no light. Hinata was dying. Hinata couldn’t remember what the sky looked like. This is it. I’m dying with no one to save me.

But Hinata didn't die. He was lost to a sea of cold, and then, reborn into a world of warmth.

Hinata remember this: his yellow eyes.

He thought he’d never see them again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`  
Sweat dripped down Hinata’s forehead and into his eyes as he panted with exhaustion. Pushing his matted orange bangs out of his eyes he looked up into the eyes of his father. “Again.” He demanded taking his stance once again. His father nodded and looked at the other person standing opposite of Hinata. 

 

The golden eyed boy sighed and took his position. Kozume Kenma was a boy of little words who looked that he would rather be somewhere else in this moment. He looked as if he wanted nothing more than to sneak off to a corner to go play his gameboy. He often did not like being around people, but there were a few exceptions, Hinata being one of them.

 

“Fight!”

 

Hinata took off like a rocket directly towards Kenma, his orange hair a streak left behind. He ran straight for the most part, Kenma took notice of this and prepared for his counterattack. Hinata then at the last moment weaved through the expected path, Kenma, having spared with Hinata many times, knew this moment was going to happen and simply pushed hinata over during Hinata’s quick changes in direction.

 

“Can I go now?” Kenma said facing Hinata’s father with a disinterested look on his face. 

 

Hinata’s father shrugged. “Go take a ten minute break.” He then walked over to Hinata to pull his sprawled out son from the ground. “How many times was that today?”

 

“f….ive.” HInata mumbled looking away from his father.

 

“I said how many times?”

“Five.” Hinata said whipping his head around to face his dad.

 

“Five times Shouyou. Five. You could have been killed five times.” He said sternly. 

 

Hinata had a quick flashback to his attack and he could have sworn that his scars held a phantom ache. “Yeah….” He said rubbing the back of his neck.

 

“I knew we should have started you earlier.” He groaned pinching the bridge of his nose. “ Go take a ten minute break. I expect you to do better next time.” He pushed his son on the small of his back.

 

Most Hunters would start their training at the ripe age of 8. While his father wanted him to start at that age, his mother, not originally a hunter, wanted to protect her son from the horrors and was vehemently against the whole idea of turning her son into a hunter. That all change however when he was attacked by the wolves at 11. Finally seeing that this could have all been prevented had he had training, his mother had reluctantly agreed.

 

Hinata’s face was deep into a frown when a small blonde girl barreled into him. “SHOUUUYOOUUU!” She called out grinning. Her grin fell when she saw the state Hinata was in. 

 

“Oh, I know that face. Let me guess. Something with your father came up. Hmmm… judging from the state he’s in I’m guessing he said something along the lines of ‘We should have put you in training earlier and I expect better from you’ am I right?”

 

Hinata’s jaw dropped. “How is it that you always know what happened?!” He said simply amazed. 

 

Yachi just grinned. “It’s my secret. Plus I’ve known you since like, forever.” She stated waving her hand. 

 

Hinata just smiled. It was true that Yachi and him did go way back. They first met in elementary school, Karasuno elementary to be exact. At first Yachi was a bumbling, nervous, mess of a girl who had an overactive imagination, well she still did if Hinata was being honest. However over time, she became much more confidant in her abilities. While she probobly wouldn’t ever go out into the field of hunting, yachi was much more suited for a behind the scenes job, everyone still got training in the same general area. 

 

“Come with me to get something to drink please?” She asked rapidly blinking her eyes. 

 

“Ppplleeeaasseeee?” She tugged his hand towards the direction of the cafeteria.

 

“Okay okay fine. Jesus, Hitoka I swear you’re worse than bokuto.” Hinata laughed making the shape of his hair over his head.

 

“I am not!” She gasped in mock horror before laughing.

 

The two walked in complete silence towards the cafeteria. It wasn’t a silence that needs to be filled with the chatter of two people, but rather one of complete comfortableness between two best friends. 

 

As soon as they reached the caferteria, Yachi suddenly spun to face HInata. 

 

“Alright spill. What really happened?” She said   
“My dad,” Hinata began. “He expects so much of me and I’m not even sure if I can live up to it. He wants me to become this world class amazing hunter and I don’t see it. To make things even worse, he brought up the whole wolf attack from when I was eleven!” Hinata said frustratedly. “I’ve been training ever since then non stop, well maybe not ever since then because there was that one time I got really sick, but that’s not the point. The worst thing is, is that I’m trying to freaking hard and I’m not getting anywhere!” Hinata let out a frustrated breath of air and angrily ran his fingers through his hair.

 

Yachi pressed her finger to her mouth. “Well If it makes you feel any better, I can totally see the progress you’ve been making. Especially right here.” She poked him right in the belly. “Man I miss your chub. N..not that you were ever… you know..chubby.” She said a bit nervously.

 

Hinata swatted her hand away from his belly. “Stop that.” He giggled but then grew serious. “I...I just don’t know. I want to make my dad proud of me. It’s like nothing I do, I can do it right. He always finds something to nag about.” He sighed.

 

“Hinata, look at me right now. I have known you basicly my entire life and what I’m going to say right now, I truly believe with all my heart. Shouyou, you are a wonderful human being and I don’t care if your dad can’t see that because I can. I can see that everyday. When you want something, you put 110% effort into something and it pays off. It may not pay off now or tomorrow, or even the next month, but it will eventually. I personally guarantee it.” She said looking at him with a fierce determination.

 

“Thanks yachi. I feel a lot better now. Anyway, what do you want to get to drink?

 

“Oh..um...yeah…” Yachi blinked owlishly before choosing a strawberry milk tea.

 

HInata felt much better after having that deep conversation with Yachi. One of his favorite things about her, was the fact that she was willing to sit and listen to his problems. Not to mention that she’d probably come hunt him down if he didn’t tell her his problems. Hinata loved Yachi as a sister and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual between them. He looked at her before going to hug her.

 

“Ehhh?” She said startled.

 

“Thank you.”He said holding her tighter.

 

“Can’t...br..eath!” She gasped out before he let her go. 

 

“Ahh! Sorry!” He jumped back.

 

Yachi waved her hand. “Don’t mind, let’s just hurry back before your dad blows a casket or something.” She said.  
Hinata smiled and nodded. “Right.”

 

Taking her hand in his, together they walked back to face the beast that was Hinata’s father.


	2. Chapter 2

They snatched the boy off his tire swing in the backyard and dragged him into the woods; his body made a shallow track in the snow, from his world to Kageyama’s. He saw it happen. He didn’t stop it.   
  
It had been the longest, coldest winter of Kageyama’s life. Day after day under a pale, worthless sun. And the hunger—hunger that burned and gnawed, an insatiable master. That month nothing moved, the landscape frozen into a colorless diorama devoid of life. One of the pack had been shot trying to steal trash off someone’s back step, so the rest of the pack stayed in the woods and slowly starved, waiting for warmth and their old bodies. Until they found the boy. Until they attacked.   
  
They crouched around him, ruffs raised, snarling and snapping, breath misting in the air, fighting to tear into the kill first.   
  
Kageyama saw it. He saw their flanks quake with their eagerness. He saw them tug the boy’s body this way and that, tainting the white snow beneath him, grey. He saw his bright hair grow damp with melting snow. He saw muzzles smeared with red. Still, Kageyama didn’t stop it.   
  
Kageyama was high up in the pack—Daichi and Sugawara had made sure of that—so he could’ve moved in immediately, but instead hung back, trembling with the cold, up to his ankles in snow. The orange haired boy smelled warm like sunlight, alive, human above all else. What was wrong with him? If he was alive, why wasn’t he struggling, like he should have been?   
  
Kageyama could smell his blood, a warm, bright scent in this dead, cold, snow clad world. He saw Tanaka jerk and tremble as he tore and bit at his clothing. Kageyama’s stomach twisted with hunger, painful—it had been so long since he’d eaten. He wanted to push through the wolves to stand next to Tanaka and pretend that he couldn’t smell his humanness or hear his soft moans. He was so little underneath the wolves wildness, the pack pressing against him, wanting to trade his life for theirs.   
  
With a snarl and a flash of teeth, Kageyama pushed forward. Tanaka growled back at him, but Kageyama was rangier than him, despite his starvation and youth. Sugawara rumbled threateningly to back him up.   
  
Kageyama was next to him, and he was looking up at the endless sky with distant eyes, light fading out. Maybe dead. He pushed his nose into the boy’s hand; the scent on his palm, all pork buns, and butter and salt, reminded Kageyama of another life.   
  
Then he saw his eyes. Orange. Brighter than a flame   
  
Awake. Alive.   
  
The boy looked right at him, eyes holding Kageyama’s with such terrible honesty. Eyes that seemed to look right through him.   
  
Kageyama backed up, recoiled, starting to shake again—but this time, it wasn’t anger that racked his dark frame.   
  
His eyes on Kageyama’s eyes. His warm blood on Kageyama’s face.   
  
Kageyama was tearing apart, inside and outside.   
  
The orange haired boy’s life.   
  
Kageyama’s life.   
  
The pack fell back from him, wary. They growled at him, no longer one of them, and they snarled over their prey. Kageyama thought he was the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen, a tiny, bloody angel in the snow, and they were going to destroy him.   
  
Kageyama saw it. He saw her, in a way he’d never seen anything before.   
  
And he stopped it.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kageyama slammed the lid to his laptop, hard. He was angry with his most recent grade. It wasn’t that Kageyama didn’t try to study, he did, he just wasn’t good at it.  Frustrated, he stormed through the house. It wasn’t huge by any means, but it was….nice. There was enough room for each of the pack to have their own rooms, but most never got used. The pack liked to sleep together rather than separately. 

 

Pushing his mop of dark hair out of his eyes, he walked through the house, fuming from his schoolwork.  While he was walking around, he heard someone, Dachi probably, yell out. Kageyama rushed towards the sound only to find that some of the pack was playing volleyball. 

 

Asahi, Noya, Tsukishima, and Suga, vs. Dachi, Ennoshita, Narita, and Kinoshita.

 

“Get the last shot!”   
“Don’t let them score another point!” 

 

Asahi terrifyingly hit the ball over the makeshift net, Dachi hug it up one year, and Kinoshita just barely missed the ball as it hit the dirt ground with a satisfying thump. They looked devastated while Noya jumped onto Asashi, Suga smiled, and Tsukishima just looked indifferent, like he always did.

“Match point.” Shizumu said looking towards the winning side.

 

“Good game guys.” Dachi smiled as he lifted the net over his head to get to the other side to, his mate, Suga.

 

They all exchanged high fives and whoops with each other till Tsukishima noticed Kageyama lurking about in the doorway. Tsukishima took one look at him and gave his signature sneer. “Look who decided to join us today, the oh great and mighty king.”   
  


Kageyama clenched his teeth. Of all the pack members, and there was a bunch, Tsukishima was the one that he just could not stand no matter what he did. Kageyama didn’t like most people, but he loathed Tsukishima.

 

Right as he was about to give back a similar quip, he was interrupted by Suga.

 

“Oh Kageyama, how did it go?” He smiled gently.

 

“Not good.” He admitted. He just couldn’t bring himself to lie to Suga.

 

“And after all that time you put into preparing? That’s awful. Maybe you could try to take it again?” He offered.

 

Kageyama just looked sullen. “Maybe, but I just came to tell you guys that my shift starts in a little less than an hour.” 

 

“Oh right. Well you should go.” Daichi nodded.

 

Kageyama turned around, not before giving a piss off look towards Tsukishima, towards the front of the house.

 

Kageyama exited the house and looked at the trees. While the house itself wasn’t grand, it was the trees. In the right season, the trees looked like they belonged in a fairytale. In the fall right before it got cold enough for us to shift and the leaves fell off, they turned gold. The tree leaves turned into molten gold. When the sun shined through the leaves, they cast a golden orange tone.  Much like a certain someone on a cold winter day.

 

Shrugging, Kageyama got into one of the cars and pulled out the keys from the glove compartment. It took a couple of tries for the car engine to turn over and start, but once the car started, it was smooth sailing towards the bookstore. 

 

Kageyama blasted the heat to full capacity. It wasn’t wolf season yet but it was getting close. Kageyama knew from the telltale bite of the bite of the winds that smelled of a cold winter to come.  _ Maybe I’ll see him again.  _ He thought as he gripped the steering wheel. His thoughts swirled of the orange haired boy who he seemed to see every winter, but never during the three other seasons. 

 

Kageyama pulled into the parking lot and parked the old beat up car.  He sentimentally patted the dashboard of the old car and pulled on a light black jacket.  Kageyama then opened the door and hopped out of the car. 

  
He darted across the parking lot towards the old, worn bookstore and pushed open the door. His home away from home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are all so amazing omg. I'm honestly so excited that this fic has 232 reads. I didn't expect it to be so popular. Thank you so much! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. :)

Hinata saw him again after that, always in the cold of winter, and always at a distance. He stood at the edge of the woods in his backyard, his blue eyes steady on him as Hinata filled the bird feeder or took out the trash, but he never came close. In between day and night, a time that lasted forever in the long Minnesota winter, Hinata would cling to the frozen tire swing for as long as he could until he felt his gaze. Or, later, when he’d outgrown the swing, Hinata would step off the wooden back deck and quietly approach him, hand forward, palm up, eyes lowered. No threat. Hinata was trying to speak his language.

But no matter how long he waited, no matter how hard he tried to reach him, the wolf would always melt into the undergrowth before Hinata could cross the distance between them.

Hinata was never afraid of the large black wolf. He was large enough to tear him from the swing, strong enough to knock him down and drag Hinata into the woods. But the ferocity of his body wasn’t in his eyes. Hinata remembered his gaze, every hue of blue, and he couldn’t be afraid. Hinata knew he wouldn’t hurt him. That there wasn’t an evil bone in his body..

Hinata wanted him to know that he wouldn’t hurt him.

Hinata waited. And waited.

And he waited, too, though he didn’t know what he was waiting for. It felt like Hinata was the only one reaching out.

But he was always there. Watching Hinata watching him. Never any closer to, but never any farther away, either. It was a careful balance.

And so it was an unbroken pattern for six years: the wolves’ haunting presence in the winter and their even more haunting absence in the summer. Hinata didn’t really think about the timing. He had thought they were wolves. Only wolves.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hinata was tired. He was tired of being beat every single day and never winning once. Tired of never fulfilling his father’s expectations of greatness for him. And to make things worse, he was bored.

 

“Yachiii, I’m so freaking bored. We should do something. Anything.” Hinata complained draping himself over the young blonde girl next to him.

 

“We could go walk around town. I mean there’s not a whole lot to do in a small town, but there are a few things to do.”

 

“Like?” 

 

“Hmm… I’m not sure, we could go watch a movie or go window shopping in the local strip mall?”

 

“I don’t knowwwww…”

 

“You said anything Shouyou.”

 

“I knowwww. But I’m so bored that I don’t know.” 

 

“Well get up, we’re going out. You may want to wear a light jacket it’s getting a bit nippy. “ She said tossing him his black jacket.Hinata pulled it on and let him be pulled out by the tiny, bird like, girl. 

 

Yachi tugged Hinata’s hand and pulled him along the cracked concrete sidewalks and into town. Yachi pointed out some of the more ridiculous things that some of the people wore. One person wore an overly large puffy jacket in a hideous greyish green even though it wasn’t that cold. Hinata let out a snicker and a remark that had Yachi swatting him on the back of his orange head. 

 

“Oh Hinata, look! Do you remember this place?” Yachi said coming to a full on stop in front of an old store tucked between two newer looking shops. The paint was peeling off but it gave off a sense that it belonged there. That it had seen more than most of the buildings on this street. 

 

“Yeah, I remember. It’s the bookstore that we used to spend forever in. God it’s been so freaking long since I last came here.” Hinata said reminiscing about the days of his childhood.

 

“Let’s go in since we have nothing better to do.” Yachi said brightly and strutted towards the brown wooden door.

 

 

 

Behind the counter, Kageyama slouched on his stool in the sun and sucked in the warmth as if he could hold every drop of it inside of him. As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of old paper and unread words hung in the air. 

 

This is what Kageyama loved. When he was still human.

 

He had his nose stuck in a book when the door was pulled open with a dull ring of the bell on the seal of the door. A rush of sun warmed air entered along with a male voice and a slightly nervous higher pitched voice of a female. They were talking too loudly to have needed his help, so he continued to read his book, they walked in talking about anything but books.

 

“Whoa..sc...scary.” The female whispered nervously.

 

“Yachi, that’s so rude.” The male hissed.

 

Kageyama wouldn’t have given the two much thought if he didn’t glance at them out of the corner of his eyes. Orange, a flash of orange. Orange like so many years ago. Kageyama jerked up with a start from his book and gave the two a closer look. 

 

The female was tiny with blonde hair, but Kageyama’s attention was enthralled with her companion.The male was small with a smiling face and messy orange hair. When he looked up, sharp orange eyes traced the outline of the shop. Eyes that reminded him of that terribly cold winter night. The girl said something that caused him to shake his head, both significant and insignificant. 

 

A shock of his scent was released into the air in the store and Kageyama knew. He knew that it was him, the boy from the winter.

 

Kageyama had planned a thousand different versions of this scene in his head, but now that the moment had come, he didn’t know what to do.

He was so real here. It was different when he was in his backyard, just reading a book or scribbling homework in a notebook. There, the distance between them was an impossible void; Kageyama felt all the reasons to stay away. Here, in the bookstore, with him, he seemed breathtakingly close in a way he hadn’t before. There was nothing to stop Kageyama from talking to him.

His gaze headed in Kageyama’s direction, and he looked away hurriedly, down at his book. He wouldn’t recognize his face but he would recognize his eyes. Kageyama had to believe he would recognize his eyes.

He prayed for him to leave so he could breathe again.

Kageyama prayed for him to buy a book so he would have to talk to him. 

 

The girl called over to him, “Hinata, come over here and look at this. It’s a book we read together in elementary. Reminisce with me?” 

Kageyama sucked in a slow breath and watched his sunlit back as he crouched and looked at the children’s books with her. He nodded as she pointed to other books, but he seemed distracted. Kageyama watched the way the sunlight streamed through the windows, catching the individual flyaway hairs and turning each one into a shimmering fire red strand. His head moved almost imperceptibly back and forth with the rhythm of the music playing overhead.

“Hey.”

Kageyama jerked back as a face appeared before him. Not Hinata. One of the other customers, dark-haired and pale with freckles spattered across his face.. He had a huge camera slung over his shoulder and he was looking right into Kageyama’s blue eyes. He didn’t say anything, but Kageyama knew what he was thinking. Reactions to his eye color ranged from furtive glances to out-and-out staring; at least he was being honest about it.

 

“Do you mind if I take your photo?” He asked.

Kageyama cast around for an excuse. “Some native people think if you take their photo, you take their soul. It sounds like a very logical argument to me, so sorry, no pictures.” He shrugged apologetically. “You can take photos of the store if you like.”

The girl left Hinata and walked over to where the freckled boy was. “Yamaguchi? I didn’t think I’d see you here. What are you doing here?” The girl said looking at the camera in the boy’s hands and back up to Kageyama. “I’ll take this one please.” She said looking at him.

 

Yamaguchi just shrugged. “His eyes seemed like they would make a good photo.” He said timidly, dwarfing the girl. 

I took the book, click clack moo, from her, sparing a quick glance around for the orange haired boy.

“Twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents,” Kageyama said.

My heart was pounding.

“For a used book?” remarked the blonde girl, but she handed me a ten and a one. “Keep the penny.” The bookstore didn’t didn’t have a penny jar, but Kageyama put it on the counter next to the register. He bagged the book and receipt slowly, thinking Hinata might come over to see what was taking so long.

But he stayed in the biography section, head tipped to the side as he read the spines. The freckled boy took the bag and grinned at Kageyama and Yachi. Then they went to Hinata and herded him toward the door.

Turn around, Hinata. Look at me, I’m standing right here. If he turned right now, he’d see kageyama’s eyes, and he’d have to know him.

Freckle boy opened the door—ding—and made an impatient sound to the rest of the herd: time to move along. Yachi turned briefly, and her eyes found him again behind the counter. He knew he was staring at them—at Hinata—but he couldn’t stop.

Yachi frowned and ducked out of the store. Freckle boy said, “HInata, come on.”

Kageyama’s chest ached, his body speaking a language his head didn’t quite understand.

Kageyama waited.

But Hinata, the only person in the world he wanted to know him, just ran a wanting finger over the cover of one of the new hardcovers and walked out of the store without ever realizing Kageyama was there, right within reach


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

Hinata didn’t realize that the wolves in the wood were all werewolves until Toru Oikawa was killed.

September of his junior year, when it happened, Oikawa was all anybody could talk about. It wasn’t as though Oikawa had been this awesome kid when he was alive—apart from being one of the more popular kids and being insanely tall, which Hinata was extremely jealous of. Actually, he’d been kind of an ass, he even had a nickname for Hinata aka, shrimpy. . But when he was killed—instant sainthood. With a gruesome and sensational ripple effect, because of the way it had happened. Within five days of his death, Hinata had heard a thousand versions of the story in the school halls.

The result was this: Everyone was scared shitless of the wolves now.

Because, whenever she was home, Mom didn’t usually watch the news and Dad was terminally not home due to constant jobs hunting down the supernatural, the communal anxiety trickled down to the Hinata household slowly, taking a few days to really gain momentum. Hinata’s incident with the wolves had faded from his mother’s mind over the past six years, replaced by the smell of sweat and leather along with the smooth touch of wood, but Oikawa’s attack seemed to refresh it perfectly.

 

His Mom didn’t channel her growing anxiety into something logical like spending more quality time with her only son, the one who had been attacked by wolves in the first place. Instead, she just used it to become even more absent than usual.

“Mom, do you need some help with dinner?”

Hinata’s mother looked guiltily at him, long dark hair falling over her shoulder, turning her attention from the television that she could just see from the kitchen back to the onions she was destroying on the cutting board.

“It was so close to here. Where they found him,” Mom said with watering eyes, pointing toward the television with the knife. The news anchor looked insincerely sincere as a map of our county appeared next to a blurry photo of a wolf in the upper right corner of the screen. The hunt for the truth, he said, continued. You’d think that after a week of reporting the same story over and over again, they’d at least get their simple facts straight. The photo on the tv wasn’t even the same species as his wolf, with his oilspill coat and mesmerizing blue eyes.

“I still can’t believe it,” Mom went on. “Just on the other side of Boundary Wood. That’s where he was killed.”

“Or died.”

Mom frowned at him, delicately frazzled and beautiful as usual. “What?”

He looked back up from his math homework—disoriented, swirling lines of numbers and symbols. “He could’ve just passed out by the side of the road and been dragged into the woods while he was unconscious. It’s not the same. You can’t just go around trying to cause a panic.”

Mom’s attention had wandered back to the screen as she chopped the onions into pieces small enough for amoeba consumption. She shook her head. “They attacked him, Shouyou.”

He glanced out the window at the woods, the pale lines of the trees phantoms against the dark. If his wolf was out there, Hinata couldn’t see him. “Mom, you’re the one who told me over and over and over again: Wolves are usually peaceful.”

Wolves are peaceful creatures. This had been Mom’s words of strenght for years. He thought the only way she could keep living in this house was by convincing herself of the wolves’ relative harmlessness and insisting that his attack was a one-time event. He didn’t know if she really believed that they were peaceful, but Hinata did. Gazing into the woods, He’d watched the wolves every year of his life, memorizing their faces and their personalities. Sure, there was the lean, scary-looking white blonde wolf who hung well back in the woods. Everything about him—,the way he held himself, the way he sometimes seemed to look through you—shouted a calculating mind, and the look of his wild eyes whispered of a sadistic nature. I remembered his teeth grazing my skin. I could imagine him attacking a human in the woods again. But the rest of them? They were silent, beautiful ghosts in the woods. Hinata didn’t fear them.

“Right, peaceful.” Mom hacked at the cutting board. “Maybe they should just trap them all and dump them in Canada or something.”

Hinata scowled at his homework. Summers without his wolf were bad enough. As a child, those months had seemed impossibly long, just time spent waiting for the wolves to reappear and the impossible torture that was training. They’d only gotten worse after he noticed his blue-eyed wolf. During those long months, he had imagined great adventures where he became a red orange wolf by night and ran away with the raven wolf to a golden wood where it never snowed. Hinata knew now that the golden wood didn’t exist, but the pack—and my Blue-eyed wolf—did.

Sighing, he pushed his math book across the kitchen table, he wasn’t making much progress anyway, and joined Mom at the cutting board. “Let me do it. You’re just messing it up.”

She didn’t protest, and he hadn’t expected her to. Instead, she rewarded him with a smile and a pat on the head. She whirled away as if she’d been waiting for him to notice the pitiful job she was doing. While she was great at certain things, cooking was not one of her special gifts.   
“If you finish making dinner,” she said, “I’ll love you forever.”

He made a face and took the knife from her. Mom was...Mom. She would never be my friends’ moms: apron-wearing, meal-cooking, vacuuming, Betty Crocker. He didn’t really want her to be like them. But seriously—He needed to get his homework done if he had any hope of passing his math class.

“Thanks, hunnie. I’ll be in the studio.” If Mom had been one of those dolls that say five or six different things when you push their tummy, that would’ve been one of her prerecorded phrases.

“Don’t pass out from working yourself too hard,” He told her, but she was already running down the halls to the private gym dad had installed in the house. Shoving the mutilated mushrooms into a bowl, he looked at the clock hanging on the bright yellow wall. Still an hour until Dad would be home from “work”, otherwise known as wolf slaughtering. He had plenty of time to make dinner and maybe, afterward, to try to catch a glimpse of his wolf. Hinata refused to believe that his wolves had killed Oikwawa.

There was some sort of cut of beef in the fridge that was probably supposed to go with the mangled mushrooms. He pulled it out and slapped it on the cutting board. In the background, an “expert” on the news asked whether the wolf population in Minnesota should be limited or moved. The whole thing just put him in a foul mood.

The phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hiya. What’s up?”

Yachi. I was glad to hear from her; she was the exact opposite of my mother—totally organized and great on followthrough. She made him feel less like an alien. He nestled the phone between his ear and shoulder and chopped the beef as he talked, saving a piece the size of his fist for later. “Just making dinner and watching the stupid news.”

She knew immediately what Hinata was talking about. “I know. Talk about surreal, right? It seems like they just can’t get enough of it. It’s kind of gross, really—I mean, why can’t they just shut up and let us get over it? It’s bad enough going to school and hearing about it all the time. And you with the wolves and everything, it’s got to be really bothering you—and, seriously, Oikawa’s parents have got to be just wanting the reporters to shut up.” Yachi was babbling so fast he could barely understand her. When she wasn’t a nervous wreck, she was a chatty kathy. He missed a bunch of what she said in the middle, and then she asked, “Has Yamiguchi called tonight?”

Yamiguchi was the third side of our trio, the only one who came anywhere near understanding Hinata’s fascination with the wolves. It was a rare night when he didn’t talk to either him or Yachi by phone. “He’s probably out shooting photos. Isn’t there a meteor shower tonight?” He said. Yamiguchi saw the world through his camera; half of Hinata’s school memories seemed to be in four-by-six-inch glossy black-and-white form.

Yachi said, “I think you’re right. He will definitely want a piece of that hot asteroid action. Got a moment to talk?”

He glanced at the clock. “Somewhat. Just while I finish up dinner, then I have homework.It’s the only reason I’m passing.”

“Okay. Just a second then. Two words, try them out: es. cape.”

Hinata glanced at the beef browning on the stove top. “That’s one word, Hitoka.”

She paused. “Yeah. It sounded better in my head. Anyway, so here’s the thing: My parents said if I want to go someplace over Christmas break this year, they’ll pay for it. I so want to go somewhere. Anywhere but MercyFalls. God, anywhere but MercyFalls! Will you and Yamiguchi come over and help me pick something after school tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“If it’s someplace really cool, maybe you and him could come, too,” Yachi said.

He didn’t answer right away. The word Christmas immediately evoked memories of the scent of our Christmas tree, the dark expanse of the starry December sky above the backyard, and his wolf’s eyes watching him from behind the snow-covered trees. No matter how absent he was for the rest of the year, Hinata always had his wolf for Christmas.

Yachi groaned. “Don’t do that silent staring-off-into-the- distance-thinking look, Hinata! I can tell you’re doing it! You can’t tell me you don’t want to get out of this place!”

Hinata sort of didn’t. He sort of belonged here. “I didn’t say no,” He protested.

“You also didn’t say omigod yes, either. That’s what you were supposed to say.” Yachi sighed. “But you will come over, right?”

“You know I will,” He said, craning his neck to squint out the back window. “Now, I really have to go.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” she said. “Bring cookies. Don’t forget. Love ya. Bye.” She laughed and hung up.

He hurried to get the pot of stew simmering on the stove so it could occupy itself without him. Grabbing his coat from the hooks on the wall, Hinata pulled open the sliding door to the deck.

Cool air bit his cheeks and pinched at the tops of my ears,fondling his bright orange hair, reminding him that summer was officially over. He squinted at the edge of the yard and stepped off the deck, trying to look nonchalant as he did, hinata didn’t want his mom to come out and see him. The piece of beef in his hand felt cold and slick.

Hinata crunched out across the brittle, colorless grass into the middle of the yard and stopped, momentarily struck by the screaming pink of the sunset through the fluttering black leaves of the trees. This stark landscape was a world away from the small, warm kitchen with its comforting smells of easy survival. Where he was supposed to belong. Where he should’ve wanted to be. But the trees called to him, urging him to abandon what he knew and vanish into the oncoming night. It was a desire that had been tugging at him with disconcerting frequency these days.

The darkness at the edge of the wood shifted, and he saw his wolf standing beside a tree, nostrils sniffing toward the meat in his pale hand. His relief at seeing him was cut short as he shifted his head, letting the yellow square of light from the sliding door fall across his face. Hinata could see now that his chin was crusted with old, dried blood. Days old.

His nostrils worked; he could smell the bit of beef in his hand. Either the beef or the familiarity of Hinata’s presence was enough to lure him a few steps out of the wood. Then a few steps more. Closer than he’d ever been before.

Hinata faced him, near enough that he could have reached out and touched his dazzling fur. Or brushed the deep red stain on his muzzle.

He wanted so badly wanted that blood to be his. An old cut or scratch earned in a scuffle.

But it didn’t look like that. It looked like it belonged to someone else.

“Did you kill him?” He whispered, golden eyes reflecting the little light left

He didn’t disappear at the sound of his voice, as he had expected. He was as still as a statue, his eyes watching Hinata’s face instead of the meat in his hand.

“It’s all they can talk about on the news,” He said, as if he could understand. “They called it ’savage.’ They said wild animals did it. Did you do it?”

He stared at Hinata for a minute longer, motionless, unblinking. And then, for the first time in six years, he closed his eyes. It went against every natural instinct a wolf should have possessed. A lifetime of an unblinking gaze, and now he was frozen in almost-human grief, brilliant eyes closed, head ducked and tail lowered.

It was the saddest thing Hinata had ever seen. No creature should ever look so sad. Not his wolf.

Slowly, barely moving, Hinata approached him, afraid only of scaring him away, not of his scarlet-stained lips or the teeth they hid. His ears flicked, acknowledging the orange haired boy’s presence, but he didn’t move. He crouched, dropping the meat onto the snow beside him. He flinched as it landed. Hinata was close enough to smell the wild odor of his coat and feel the warmth of his breath.

Then he did what he had always wanted to—putting a hand to his dense ruff, and when the black wolf didn’t flinch,buried both hands in his fur. His outer coat was not soft as it looked, but beneath the coarse guard hairs was a layer of downy fluff. With a low groan, he pressed his head against me, eyes still closed. Hinata held him as if he were no more than a family dog, though his wild, sharp scent wouldn’t let him forget what he really was.

For a moment, He forgot where—who—he was. For a moment, it didn’t matter.

Movement caught his eye: Far off, barely visible in the fading day,one of them, the blonde wolf was watching at the edge of the wood, his eyes burning.

Hinata felt a rumble against his body and he realized his blue-eyed wolf was growling at him. The he-wolf stepped closer, uncommonly bold, and he twisted in his arms to face him. Hinata flinched at the sound of his teeth snapping at him, an unwelcome memory.

He never growled, and somehow that was worse. A wolf should have growled. But he just stared, eyes flicking from the black wolf to Hinata, every aspect of his body language screaming unfathomable anger.

Still rumbling, almost inaudible, Hinata’s wolf pressed harder against him, forcing him back a step, then another, guiding the orange haired boy up to the deck. Hinata’s feet found the steps and then retreated to the sliding door. He remained at the bottom of the stairs until Hinata pushed the door open and locked himself inside the house.

As soon as he was inside, the blonde wolf darted forward and snatched the piece of meat he'd dropped. Though his wolf was nearest to him and the most obvious threat for the food, it was Hinata that his cold eyes found, on the other side of the glass door. He held my gaze for a long moment before he slid into the woods like a spirit.

The blue-eyed wolf hesitated by the edge of the woods, the dim porch light catching his eyes. He was still watching Hinata’s silhouette through the door.

He pressed his palm flat against the frigid glass.

The distance between them had never felt so vast.


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while guys. :)

The one thing that always struck Kageyama about being a werewolf was the fact that they only shifted when it was cold and not the physical pain that it could bring, pain he could handle. Like would they shift if it was constantly hot or would they shed their human form regardless?  Having lived in Mercy Falls all his life, Kageyama wouldn't know.   
  


Kageyama both loved and hated being a wolf. He loved the wild ferocity of being in tune with his animalistic side. He loved the feeling of snow crunching beneath thick black paws as he stealthy stalked a lone rabbit across the frozen expanse. Or the feeling of the wind racing through his scruff while he ran without a care in the world. 

 

But he hated it. He hated it because with winter comes the ghastly aura of death and it's messengers.  Wolves. He hated how easily it was to forget about being human and how easy it was to wear the wolf side like a second skin.  Hated it because of the orange haired boy who had turned his whole life upside down those few winters ago. 

 

Kageyama’s tongue brushed up against a warm copper tasting liquid, lukewarm like a dying star. Underneath large black paws was the body of a dead squirrel, black eyes vacant of any life. He savagely tore into the small body of the squirrel without a care in the world. 

 

_ A pale hand lay limply in the snow, growing cold, that connected to an equally limp body. Blotchy red spots stained the pure white snow around him. Blood smeared on his face from claw and bite marks and his brown hair was matted with the same blood. His chocolate brown eyes were wide open, but they were dead with no light in them.  _

 

_ But Kageyama only saw bright orange, brighter than anything had the right to be in the dead of winter. He saw dying crystallized honey eyes that saw right through him. He saw Hinata, the most beautiful thing in the world, and Kageyama bolted.  _

 

_ Not again. He couldn't live through another attack like that. Not when there was plenty of food to be found unlike that winter when there was nothing. When the victim was Kageyama’s orange haired wonder. So he ran. And run he did. _

 

_ Kageyama ran till the hunger had completely engulfed his human nature and all he felt was a gnawing pit growing in his stomach.  _

 

Kageyama ate everything leaving the few bones left behind, not that there was a lot of bones. He had one of the bones in between his paws and his mouth, chewing on it. The wolf was still prevalent, drowning out his human side. The bone in his mouth snapped from the pressure of his teeth and the bone marrow inside was quickly eaten. 

 

Kageyama, feeling full, got up from his hindquarters and shook the snow off his body, black pelt catching the light and bending it back. While he still had blood from his kill on his muzzle, he was still The Wolf so he didn't care. (Though if he was still human he would care.) The wolf part of him didn't care about orange or brown haired boys. He didn't care about conflicting feelings of love or hating being a wolf. He just simply was. 

 

The wolf inside of Kageyama ran wild over the snowy expanse, kicking up snow from the ground under his paws. He loved the feeling of being free and untied down. The feeling of being the only one for a few miles with the wind at his side as his only company. Kageyama skidded to a stop and snow sprayed everywhere. The wolf in him decided that he was done with running. He trotted across the landscape for some form of shelter to sleep in.

 

Kageyama came across a small grove of trees with branches twisting together. He sniffed the ground before circling and plopping down on the snow. He gave a large yawn and lowered his head. His deep blue eyes closed and he drifted off into sleep, a large black beast slumbering peacefully. 

 

Kageyama awoke to the howls of his pack.  _ Suga.  _ His instincts supplied the answer to who had howled. Then a more deeper howl answered,  _ Dachi, tsukishima, Aashi.  _ They each replied in turn. From what Kageyama could tell, they were looking for him, but he didn't want to see them.  To bring up memories of them tearing into that poor boy. He lept to his feet and shook off the snow from his coat and bound across the land. To the one place that he loved. 

 

That wasn't wolf but human. 

 

To Hinata.

 

Running across the snowy land, Kageyama fought the urge to howl back. It went against every inborn instinct that he had, but he didn't care. His tongue lolled out of his mouth and he appeared in the woods behind his house.  Kageyama hesitated before padding closer.

 

Kageyama smelled Hinata first. He smelled of oranges, sunlight, and warmth unlike himself. Then he saw bright orange. He was quite upset that he wasn’t wearing his ridiculous knitted cap. He’d rather have the orange hair covered then have his lovey sun get sick and catch a cold. The black wolf cautiously crept forward towards his summer boy’s hand. While he trusted Hinata, he didn’t trust himself. That he wouldn’t wolf out and attack him. 

 

The spirit of summer, how funny that Kageyama was winter and the boy before him was summer, slowly moved forward and dropped the beef in front of him. Kageyama looked at it before looking at the boy. His molten amber eyes were tinted with sadness.

 

“You didn’t kill him did you? The news says that it was a pack of wild animals.” 

 

Kageyama’s nostrils widened and his ears flattened. _ Yes. Yes we did. _ He wanted to say. He wanted more than anything to speak the language. Hinata was so close and yet so far away, separated by something so small as a language. His soul keened in agony.

 

Suddenly two cold tinted warm arms looped around his chest and a face buried itself into Kageyama’s neck. Hinata wasn’t holding him too tight, he could escape if he wanted. It was nice. He liked this. Kageyama decided and didn’t pull away. He knew he should but Hinata was the gasoline to his fire, he made him do reckless things.

 

“I know you, I know you didn’t hurt him.” Hinata shook his head.

 

Kageyama wanted so much to tell him that he was wrong. That the wolves in the woods were dangerous. That he had witnessed another Hinata but did nothing this time to stop it. That we just just as bad as the others. Kageyama wanted to cry but he couldn’t. He was a monster that was incapable of crying.

 

He was drowning in agony when he heard the low warning growl of a fellow wolf. Kageyama’s head snapped up and around to face Tsukishima in a low snarl. His wolf instincts kicked into high gear and his first thought was get Hinata away to safety. Kageyama gave a low whine and started gently nudging him away from the blonde wolf. Hinata gave way and the black wolf pushed his summer boy back on the deck of his house. He gave one last look at Hinata before bounding away.

 

_ Where the hell were you?! You drove Suga and Dachi crazy looking for you! _

 

_ Getting away from you guys. _ Kageyama snapped at Tsukishima

 

_ You were gone for 3 fucking days! Now I see that you spent all that time cuddling up with that damn human of yours. Do you know what his fucking parents are? _   
  


Kageyama stayed quiet.

 

_ They’re fucking werewolf hunters. They hunt our kind and you would have fucking lead them to our pack by fucking snuggling up with their god damn son. _

 

_ Hinata’s not like that! _ Kageyama snarled having enough of Tsukishima.

 

_ Reallyy now? Do you even know where he spends most of his time? Being fucking trained by his fucking werewolf hunter parents. Do even know what might happen if he fucking finds out what you are? _   
  


If Kageyama was being honest, he didn’t quite care. He would happily give up his life for just a few precious moments with his orange haired sun. 

 

Tsukishima howled to signal the pack that he had found Kageyama, but Kageyama didn’t really notice. All he thought about was Hinata.

 

Hinata who looked so devastated to hear about the brown haired boy.

 

Hinata who wanted so desperately to believe that he hadn’t had been the one to attack him.

  
Kageyama snorted. Hinata and him really were like summer and winter. So close, yet so far away. Close enough to reach out and touch, but never to be one. Fate really was a bitch.


End file.
